A chafing stand is a device used to support aluminum or steel pans and uses auxiliary fuel heaters preferably supported within the chafing stand for the purpose of maintaining and heating pre-cooked food at a location remote from the kitchen where the food was originally prepared and cooked. The primary factors controlling the selling price of a wire chafing stand are: (a) fabrication cost attributable to labor, (b) the amount of wire rod used in the fabrication of the wire chafing stand and (c) the transportation cost for transporting the fabricated wire chafing stand from the point of manufacture to a distributor or purchaser. The costs attributable to labor can be substantially reduced by automating the fabrication to minimize human involvement. The amount of the wire rod can be minimized by using less wire rod and/or thinner wire rod. Lastly, the cost of transportation may be minimized by transporting a multiplicity of wire chafing stands in a nested relationship and disassembling them after shipment. However, a wire chafing stand must also have sufficient strength and stability to resist tilting and to resist collapsing in response to applied forces imposed when dispensing food from the wire chafing stand. Thus reliability, safety and strength must also be factored into the fabrication design and may offset any advantage realized by simply optimizing the primary factors.
Heretofore, one could minimize transportation cost by nesting the wire chafing stands together during transportation. However, nesting may cause wedging which would make it difficult to separate the wire chafing stands after they are nested together. This problem was addressed and overcome in U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,948 and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,513, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference, by incorporating “offsets” either in the wire legs of the chafing stand or in the rim of the stand during the fabrication of the wire chafing stand.
The cost of fabrication attributable to labor may be optimized by automating the operation such that the plurality of wire legs are welded to each of the rims using automated welding equipment.
Prior art wire chafing stand were designed to resist tilting and to resist collapsing, in response to applied forces imposed when dispensing food from the wire chafing stand, by arranging the wire legs in a substantially U shaped configuration with the wire legs bridging the longer and shorter sides of both the upper and lower rims of the chafer. An alternative wire chafing stand is commercially available which employs straight wire legs extending upright between the upper and lower rims. However, additional wire members, hereinafter “wire or support rods”, are used in this alternative design as support rods between the upper and lower rims to increase stability and to prevent the upper rim from collapsing due to the forces applied by the weight of the metal pans placed in the chafing stand before dispensing food. This arrangement increases the cost of wire rod. Moreover, the wire rod supports are welded between the upper and lower rims approximate the center of the chafer which makes it more difficult to withdraw or insert a canned fuel holder into the chafer.
The wire chafing stand of the subject invention employs an arrangement of wire rods which does not require wire support rods thereby substantially reducing cost. Instead, all of the wire rods function as wire legs without compromising strength or safety. This is accomplished by using an arrangement of wire legs attached only to the lateral sides of the chafing stand in a substantially upright configuration without use of support rods. It has been discovered that if the wire legs are attached to the wire chafing stand on its lateral sides at a location in very close proximity to its longitudinal sides the wire chafing stand can resist tilting of the wire chafing stand and will resist applied forces imposed when dispensing food from the wire chafing stand which without support rods may otherwise cause the stand to collapse. In accordance with the present invention “very close proximity” defines a space or gap of no more than about 1¼″ in dimension from the weld to the centerline of the longitudinal sides and preferably less than about ¾″ in dimension to the centerline of the longitudinal sides.
The wire chafing stand of the present invention consists of at least one rim in a closed configuration having lateral and longitudinal sides, preferably forming a rectangular geometry, and a plurality of wire legs affixed to only the lateral sides of the rim on opposite sides thereof in close proximity to the longitudinal sides so as to form a gap of less than about 1¼″ in dimension to the centerline of the longitudinal sides. For purposes of the present disclosure, the shorter side of the wire chafing stand represents the lateral side and the longitudinal side represents the longer side. In the preferred construction, the wire chafing stand includes an upper rim and a lower rim and a total of four wire legs, arranged in pairs, with a pair of wire legs connected to one lateral side of the upper rim on each opposite side thereof. Each wire leg should extend below the lower rim in a bent configuration to form a base member having a section level with the ground for supporting the wire chafing stand above ground.
The wire legs in each pair are in parallel to one another and in a substantially upright configuration with each leg being tilted in a horizontal direction and welded out of plane so that each leg bridges the upper rim to the lower rim. This accommodates a lower rim with dimensions substantially smaller then the corresponding dimensions of the upper rim.
At least one offset should be located in each wire leg and preferably at a location below the lower rim adjacent the lateral side thereof.